The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One (53 page)

How had Esmer known—?

Observing her refusal, his manner softened momentarily. “If the Ramen heed my word, they will trust their hearts concerning you. And if they do not—” Again he shrugged; but this time the motion suggested diffidence, even timidity. “They will be persuaded otherwise.”

Then, however, all hint of softness vanished from him. Like Liand, she might have ceased to exist. Between one instant and the next, he began to seethe with fury as he shifted his dark emerald gaze to the Master.

“You,”
he said; and his voice gathered potency as if he could bring down the night and the stars to hear him. “I
know
you, to my enduring cost. You are Stave, Bloodguard and Master,
Haruchai.
” With each word, his voice grew, acquired resonance, until it became the shout of great sackbuts, steerhorns, so loud that it seemed to echo off the mountainsides. “Because of you,
I am made to be what I am!

“Defend yourself, heartless one, lest I
destroy
you!”

At once, he launched himself at Stave like a scend, the surge of a tumbling wave.

“Esmer!” Hami cried instantly. “No! They must not be harmed! I promised them safety!”

Together, she and several other Manethralls rushed to intervene.

Instinctively Linden reached for Covenant's ring. But she had no power. She was blocked by nausea; trapped within herself by the confusion of her senses.

The ur-viles barked savagely in unison. At the tip of their wedge, an iron rod or scepter appeared in the loremaster's hands. The creature raised the rod high, preparing conflagration.

Esmer's response shook the encampment. Around the clearing, the ground erupted like water in spouts, geysers, hurling dirt and stubble into the air. Linden was flung backward: the Manethralls were picked up, tossed aside. Bursts of force and soil drove the Ramen back.

But the ur-viles were not affected. Linden realized as she sprawled to the ground that Esmer spared them; or they were able to withstand him. While he made the dirt hurl and dance, they remained upright in their wedge, poised for black might which they had not unleashed.

Liand fell on his back near her. The spouts continued erratically, leaping upward as if they had been squeezed from the guts of the Earth, first to one side, then another, back and forth at vehement intervals. But now they touched no one. Instead they kept the Ramen away; enforced a vacant place like a killing field in the middle of the clearing.

And in the midst of the geysers, Stave and Esmer fought.

Linden could not so much as whisper Stave's name. Esmer's power closed her throat.

The Master met Esmer's first attack easily: blocked a punch, then used the impact of a kick to lift him away so that he gained a little distance. “You are a treacher, or misguided,” he informed his assailant calmly. “The
Haruchai
also have no part in this. We do not know you.

“If you have truly been made to be who you are, and do not choose your own way”—his tone carried a sting of scorn—“lay blame elsewhere. I know not how you have tricked or betrayed the Ramen to friendship, but I deny you. If you do not desist, I will teach you better wisdom.”

Esmer answered with a flurry of blows like a sudden squall: fists and feet so swift that Linden could not follow them. For a moment, Stave seemed to block and counter amid the storm and the bursting geysers as if he were Esmer's equal. Strikes and gasps punctuated the air in staccato, at once sodden and sharp, flesh and bone. Then, abruptly, the
Haruchai
staggered backward; nearly fell to his knees.

His face bled from cuts and pulped skin on his cheeks and forehead. From where she lay, Linden could feel pain grinding in his chest like splinters of bone twisting against each other.

Esmer's green eyes seethed with ferocity. “You are mistaken,
Haruchai
!” His voice thundered across the valley. A tidal wave might have broken over the clearing: Linden seemed to hear Stave's accuser through a wall of water and chaos. “Your folk
sired
me! I am your
descendant,
conceived by Cail among
merewives,
and given birth by the Dancers of the Sea!

“Because of the
Haruchai,
there will be endless havoc!”

Tears caught the light and glowed like embers on his cheeks. In spite of his rage, he might have been sobbing.

Swift as lightning, he attacked again.

Several of the Manethralls and Cords tried to force their way into the battle. Liand
joined them, ignoring his distrust of the Masters. But spouting dirt and stones repulsed them.

The
Haruchai
could be killed: Linden knew that. She had seen them slain by spears and Sandgorgons. Panting, No, no! she struggled to her feet against the overflow of Esmer's power, the shock and virulence of his geysers.

Cail's
son
?

As though he had not been bloodied, and felt no hurt, Stave sprang to meet the assault. He struck and struck, a whirlwind of blows and blocks: spinning; leaping; allowing Esmer to hit him so that he could hit back. Once he rocked Esmer's head: several times, he drove his fists and feet into Esmer's body.

Yet the punishment he received in return was worse. Linden saw his blood splash the ground; felt more of his ribs give way. A lashing elbow snapped one of his clavicles. Within herself, she scrambled frantically to find the hidden door of the ring's fire, but it eluded her. Stave's pain and Esmer's churning power and her own fear paralyzed her.

And still the ur-viles did not enter the conflict. They appeared to have no interest in Stave's plight. They had come for some other purpose and ignored everything else.

Then the fight seemed to freeze for an instant, catching Stave in an attempt to fling a kick at Esmer's head. He was off-balance and slow, however, already battered almost senseless. While his kick rose, Esmer dove at him with a blow to the pelvis that wrenched his leg from its socket.

Stave fell on his face, fingers clawing at the dirt, unable to rise.

Esmer stood over the
Haruchai.
With one hand, he knotted a grip in Stave's hair, pulled Stave's head back. With the other, he punched Stave's head downward.

Stave's head bounced once; settled to the ground like a sigh. He did not move again.

An instant later, the spouting ceased.

Fierce pressure evaporated from the air as if a squall had frayed and drifted apart. Linden stumbled at the abrupt release: her arms flailed. The ground under her boots held a residual tremor like the aftermath of a distant earthquake. Around her, the Ramen blinked dazedly, shocked by relief and the sudden end of violence. Liand stood among them with wildness in his eyes. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this.

Because of the
Haruchai,
there will be endless havoc.

Oh, Stave.

Linden felt rather than saw the ur-viles withdraw into the night; but she no longer cared what they did. Had they come to protect her? To protect Esmer from her? It made no difference now.

If they had wished Stave dead, they could easily have slain him themselves.

Shaking his head, Esmer stepped away from the beaten Master. He looked vaguely
crestfallen, almost ashamed, as if he had been caught in an unjustified act of vengeance—or forbearance.

“Esmer,” Hami breathed, “what have you done?”

He did not answer.

Stave was still alive.

Freed from her paralysis, Linden ran to his side. Ignoring Cail's son, she dropped to her knees to examine the
Haruchai.

On the Sandwall of
Bhrathairain,
Ceer had taken a spear meant for her. With one leg shattered, he had not been able to defend her effectively, and so he had simply let himself be impaled.

Without Brinn's self-sacrifice, she and Covenant would never have been able to approach the One Tree.

Trembling with her own fury, Linden reached into Stave with her health-sense. Somehow he still lived. If he could be saved, she did not mean to let him die.

As she studied his wounds, a hush fell over the gathering. The clenched attention of the Ramen turned away from her and the Master. But she did not raise her head. In moments, she was sure that Stave needed saving.

His body was a mass of bruises and bleeding, but that damage was superficial: his native vitality would heal it. In addition to his shattered clavicle, however, and his dislocated hip, she found a collapsed sinus in one cheek, stress fractures in both femurs, a variety of badly battered internal organs, and at least eight broken ribs.

One of them had splintered completely, puncturing a lung in several places. She could hear moisture rattle in his troubled breathing. The ground under him seemed to tremble with the difficulty of his respiration.

She looked up to find only Esmer gazing at her. Liand and the Ramen stared past her toward the far side of the clearing. Wonder and deference filled their faces.

Linden did not so much as glance at what they saw. The thunder in the dirt left her untouched.

“You bastard,” she spat at Esmer. “Why didn't you just kill him? You've done everything else.”

“I have seen what you do not,” he answered ambiguously. The look in his eyes might have been gladness or remorse. “Behold.”

With one hand, he pointed beyond her to the sound of hooves.

When she turned her head, she saw two proud horses trot into the clearing as though they had been incarnated from darkness and firelight.

She had encountered horses aplenty during her life; but she had never seen horses like these.

They were craggy and extreme, full of the essential substance of the Land, with deep chests and mighty shoulders, and a hot smolder of intelligence in their eyes. Their
coats gleamed as if they had been brushed and curried ceaselessly for generations, one a roan stallion, the other a dappled grey mare; and their long manes and tails flew like pennons.

In the center of their foreheads, white stars blazed like heraldry, emblems of lineage and Earthpower.

As one, the Ramen bowed low to them: an action as natural and necessary as breathing to the horse-tenders of Ra. Liand gaped openly, transfixed, unable to look away.

“This is the true challenge of the Ramen,” Esmer explained gruffly. “The Ranyhyn have accepted me.” He sounded both forlorn and proud. “Now they have come to accept you, the
Haruchai
as well as yourself. And they are precious to me. Their approach stayed my hand. I will not gainsay them.”

The horses advanced across the clearing until they were mere strides from Linden and Stave. There they halted. She held her breath as they shook their heads and flourished their manes, gazing at her and the
Haruchai
gravely. The blowing sounds they made may have been greetings.

Then together they bent their forelegs and bowed their noses to the dirt as if in homage.

Part Two
“the only form of innocence”